Brian Johnson describes his book launch for Arete: Activate Your Heroic Potential (released November 14, 2023), recounting a launch party in Austin that included a Wim Hof–style Cold Plunge and a rooftop gathering. He explains connecting with Greg Burhalter, head coach of the U.S. Men’s National Soccer Team, which led to an invitation to speak to the team; the talk emphasized forging antifragile confidence and the Josh Waitzkin-inspired idea of making your prior best your new baseline. The clip closes with a reflective prompt to reinstall one high-impact habit from a prior-best moment.
Questions this video answers
November 14, 2023.
£3,000 of ice.
Jeff Everidge (heroic coach, former Navy SEAL).
Greg Burhalter.
Austin, Texas.
Chapters
Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another Heroic one. As you know, if you've been following along, we launched our book Arete Activate youe heroic potential on November 14, 2023. The weekend before we released the book, we had a little book launch party in Austin and celebrated with a couple hundred heroes. It was awesome. The weekend featured some wisdom from me and some chats with some of my wisest friends, including Mark Devine and Hal Elrond. And just to make sure we all had a good heroic time, we had £3,000 of ice delivered to our hotel and brought up to the rooftop pool deck. £3,000. So we could all have some fun doing a Wim HOF inspired Cold Plunge together. Special thanks to my dear friend Jeff Everidge who led us in the Cold Plunge experience. Jeff's a heroic coach and investor who also happens to be a former Navy SEAL who did a fantastic job getting us fired up and freezing. By the way, Jeff is also helping us craft our Heroic Workshop Facilitator Training program. If you'd like to become certified in giving heroic workshops, you can learn more in this +1. We link to it up now. As it turns out, the U.S. men's National Soccer Team, or USMNT, happened to be staying in the same hotel we were in. They were in Austin to play a game the following week and they were literally right next door. So I texted my friend John Herdman, who won a couple Olympic medals coaching the Canadian Women's National Soccer team before taking over the Canadian Men's National Team before taking over the head coaching responsibilities at Toronto fc, where we're in the process of rolling out heroic, by the way. And I asked John if he knew Anyone on the U.S. men's National Soccer team. He replied immediately and said that he knew their head coach, Greg Burhalter. And then he text connected us. Now Greg and I connected immediately and got together the very next day and we hit it off. He invited me to talk to his team the following night before their big game. Of course, I accepted. It was awesome. The theme of my talk, as you'd expect, I talked about our seven objectives with an emphasis on forging antifragile confidence along with heroic strength. Not just for two, but for 334,233,854Americans as those guys go all in, seeing if they can win the World cup on their home turf. Our home turf in 2026. Now Greg told me that his favorite part of my talk was the Josh Waitzkin inspired idea that we need to make our prior best our new baseline. And that's today's plus one. Take a moment and think back to a time when you were at your absolute best. What were you doing, and what were you not doing? Now, are you currently doing the things you did when you were at your prior best, or did you let those gains slip? Know this. The best among us never give up those gains. That's what makes them the very best. And that's what we need to do if we're going to activate our heroic potential. So what's one thing you did when you were at your best that you're not currently doing, that you know you could be doing that would most positively impact your life if you started doing it again? You got it? Now dominate that. Reinstall that habit. Make your prior best your new baseline starting today.
